A Brit in Sweden

[Dreamwoven]

It is early May here in Southern Norrland, but the leaves are coming out and it is in the mid-20s celsius, unusually warm. Not complaining, quite the opposite, but after the cold winter with 3 feet of snow it is very surprising, all the snow has gone now except occasional residual piles.

[Danik 2016]

It seems spring has definitely come to US or parts of it. Yes/No posted wonderful flower pictures on his blog:

http://frankhubeny.blog/2018/05/07/copper-silver-and-gold/

[Dreamwoven]

We've been having a mini heat wave, temperatures in the mid 20s celsius, blue skies. It has pushed the trees to blossom, especially birch trees, but also cherry trees. After the cold winter with several feet of snow on the ground it is now melting rapidly resulting in flooding and train delays.

[Danik 2016]

Lol, DW! I love mid 20s celsius heat waves. For us they are temperate. Today 27-28ºC.

[Dreamwoven]

http://earthsky.org/earth/north-pole-gets-a-heat-wave-apr-may-2018

Global warming is more noticeable at or near the poles. The Reindeer herds of the Sami find it difficult to graze the frozen ground when ice covers it, making the grazing of the moss very difficult. National borders are an added Complication.

This can result in starvation, as reindeer herds, need to move to wherever conditions are most suitable.

[M Kirkpatrick]

Hello there Dreamwoven, where you live sounds wonderful, is there much tourist business there,and if so what would be an ideal month to visit, I guess in the spring
is that right.

Warmest regards Michael.

[Danik 2016]

I am very sorry about the Reindeer herds of the Sami. I hope that there are NGOs to help them.

[Dreamwoven]

More likely government organisations as the Sami are necessarily organised across International borders. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_agencies_in_Norway

[Danik 2016]

Thanks, DW. Some more links on that topic:

http://reindeerherding.org/herders/sami-norway/

and

https://www.uarctic.org/member-profiles/sweden/

[Dreamwoven]

The first link, on reindeer herding, is interesting. The present Swedish social democratic government is in favour of supporting the Sami.

[Dreamwoven]

It is now 15 May 2018. We have had blazing sunshine and blue skies since late April. Is this good? Water is becoming once more a problem, but it depends on what happens in the coming weeks. For now we enjoy the sunshine and temperatures in the mid-20s celsius. The rivers in the north are in spate with local flooding a problem. The weather is dominated by the high pressure area over Russia. Atlantic low pressure areas can't seem to penetrate Sweden except in the far south (Skåne), where they petre out.

[Danik 2016]

Autumn/Winter are almost rainless seasons in the state, where I live. This often causes water problems because the reservoirs get very low. And São Paulo is a thickly populated city.

The weather in Brazil is dominated by several factors among them the Ocean currents El Niño and La Ninã:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Niño

The temperatures are similar to yours now, mid-20s celsius.

[Dreamwoven]

The kind of weather we have been having is continuing, but with chilly north winds keeping the temperature down. Otherwise blue skies. I think what has happened is that the Low pressure and its rain have moved south from Skåne avoiding the Russian high pressure area to the East. So we still get temperatures in the low 20s celsius, just not so hot.

I think what is happening is that the prevailing westerlies that still reach Britain are pushed south of Sweden, making Sweden both warmer and more sunny than the rest of Europe. This was mentioned in Sweden's weather forecasts. So perhaps this is a result of global warming that Sweden is benefiting from?

I wonder how this differs from Brazil influenced as it is by the ocean currents El Niño and La Ninã?

[Dreamwoven]

My point is that as the prevailing westerlies in Europe don't affect Sweden as much as they used to do, it is likely that other more distant prevailing winds are likely to be also affected. Niño and La Ninã are two such ocean currents. Are they also affected like the Gulf Stream in Europe?

[Danik 2016]

Sorry, DW, saw #263 only now. These days there is more activity on Litnet and yesterday I only entered Internet in the afternoon owing to a connetion mistake I had to find out.

I don´t understand much about El Niño but I found this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FVZrw7bk1w

[Danik 2016]

Another one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FVZrw7bk1w

Today we are having our first winter day!

[Dreamwoven]

It looks similar to the SW winds we get in Britain and Sweden from the Gulf Stream, but more stormy and wild. looks quite nasty.

[Danik 2016]

The results are nasty too, because it plays hawoc with the seasons: Spring is hotter than Summer, and in Summer we have the milder autumn temperatures. Some years ago, when one of the niños was at work we had, what was then called Winter 40º C.
Without the "children currents" we expect a more or less normal year, at least in regard to the weather.

[Dreamwoven]

May has broken all records for temperature and sunshine, but also for dryness and the risk of bushfires, the forests are tinder dry. Is this what global warming will bring, I wonder? Sweden remains under the influence of the Russian high pressure area, rain reaches Britain but then the low moves south rather thane east. So the rain comes to central Europe rather than Sweden.

[Danik 2016]

The weather here is wonderful but Brazil is just coming out of a lorry strike(well, I hope it is).

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/30/brazil-truckers-strike-protest-military-dictatorship

[Dreamwoven]

You must subscribe to the Guardian. I used to do so, but cancelled it a while back. Now you have to pay a small subscription fee.

[Danik 2016]

Sorry, DW!You mean, of course, that there is no free access to the Guardian any more. It´s a pity. Here I can still read the articles.

I hope BBC is stillavailable. Anyway the strike seems to be over:

That was yesterday:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-44297611?intlink_from_url=http://www.bbc.com/news/topics/cmj34zmw77wt/brazil&link_location=live-reporting-story

[Dreamwoven]

The heat wave we had continues. It is June 2nd, we had a day yesterday with periodic thunder, and it hardly rained at all. On the news the report was that the rain that did fall evaporate before reaching the ground! There are already predictions that the cost of water will go up a lot as a result of the rain-free summer.

[Danik 2016]

Almost twelve days without rain here. This was the driest May in the last yeard.We were having wonderful autumn days. But rain has been announced for today.

[Dreamwoven]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oral_rehydration_therapy - Oral Rehydration Therapy is the safest way to deal with this problem. Half a glass a day is enough to preserve health.

[Dreamwoven]

We never had such extended periods of high temperatures in Sweden. It rarely goes beyond 21 celsius. But now we have had a May dominated by highs of 25 celsius, and now in June it goes even higher - 28 celsius.

[Dreamwoven]

See this item in Wikipedia on global warming: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming.

[Dreamwoven]

How is this affecting other parts of the world?

Australia: has an entire website devoted to climatic change. See https://www.climatechangeinaustralia.gov.au/en/ it is estimated that temperatures have increased by an average of 1 degree celsius. The great<test changes have been recent: https://www.climatechangeinaustralia.gov.au/en/climate-campus/australian-climate-change/australian-trends/

[Dreamwoven]

How is this affecting other parts of the world?

Australia: has an entire website devoted to climatic change. See https://www.climatechangeinaustralia.gov.au/en/ it is estimated that temperatures have increased by an average of 1 degree celsius. The greatest changes have been recent: https://www.climatechangeinaustralia.gov.au/en/climate-campus/australian-climate-change/australian-trends/

[Dreamwoven]

global warming in New Zealand: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_in_New_Zealand

[Dreamwoven]

a Brit in Sweden

[Danik 2016]

At last some rain here. It started during the night.

And today there will be the Yearly Gay Parade, one of the biggest if not the biggest of the world.

[kiz_paws]

Here in the Prairies of Canada, all of May was pretty much without rain, and the latter half was so very very hot.... temps of plus 30 Celcius and beyond, if you factor a Humidex factor... I felt so sorry for our grain farmers.... they so badly needed the rain. But the last few days were a lot cooler and yes. Rain did come. Hope it is well with our farmers!

[Dreamwoven]

The whole subject of global warming is riven by dissension. The wikipedia article on this is illustrative: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming.

[Danik 2016]

Yes and by politics. But here in São Paulo the heat is increasing about one grade each year. I still remember when 30ºC was the highest temperature possible. Now it is climbing to peaks of 37ºC.

[Dreamwoven]

As a Brit living in Sweden I am happy to be living here. It has a fragmented class structure so there are lots of political parties to choose between. In Britain you only have two, or perhaps three, Labour, Conservative and possibly Liberal. I learned quite a lot about Sweden by the language, especially in the Institute for Housing Research, while in Gävle, where I was a Research worker for my last working years (the Housing Research Institute has now relocated to Uppsala, while Gävle has grown into a decent-sized city with some 100,000 residents. the Housing and Urban Research Institute: https://katalog.uu.se/organisation/?orgId=SF16

[Dreamwoven]

Although I was born and lived in Britain for the first 25 years of my life, I increasingly identify myself with Sweden. This is my home and I love it here.

[Danik 2016]

Sweden seems to be an interesting country. Only winter seems to be very cold there.

[Dreamwoven]

This year was exceptionally cold, we had four feet of snow, but in spring it melted quite quickly, by May it had all gone. Southern Norrland is about the same latitude as Anchorage in Alaska.

[Dreamwoven]

Further north it is much colder. Yesterday we went by car to Åmot, a beautiful place some 50 km north of here. We stopped off for an iced drink and home-made pastries, and sat and watched the swallows and the waterlilies on the lake.

[Danik 2016]

Well you have something there one misses when one lives in an immense air polluted capital:beautiful spots of nature. We had a lot of doves around here, but the major put a fine on feeding them and in no time they grew much less.
This winter promises to be another winter 40ºC. Temperatures so far have been above 25º.

[Dreamwoven]

Oddly enough, the most influential department for me was my very first post as Assistant Lecturer at Leicester University (1961-649. This obituary of its head of department, Ilya Neustadt, in combination of the two lecturers there, both appointed by Neustadt - Norbert Elias and Anthony Giddens - were formative for me. I was thereafter always fascinated by the micro-macro distinction in sociology.

See https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-professor-ilya-neustadt-1473958.html

Leicester City did very well at the time and with a group of friends I went to watch them play. Their goalkeeper,

[Dreamwoven]

Oddly enough, the most influential department for me was my very first post as Assistant Lecturer at Leicester University (1961-649. This obituary of its head of department, Ilya Neustadt, in combination of the two lecturers there, both appointed by Neustadt - Norbert Elias and Anthony Giddens - were formative for me. I was thereafter always fascinated by the micro-macro distinction in sociology.

See https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-professor-ilya-neustadt-1473958.html

Leicester City did very well at the time and with a group of friends I went to watch them play. Their goalkeeper,

[Dreamwoven]

Oddly enough, the most influential department for me was my very first post as Assistant Lecturer at Leicester University (1961-64). This obituary of its head of department, Ilya Neustadt, in combination of the two lecturers there, both appointed by Neustadt - Norbert Elias and Anthony Giddens - were formative for me. I was thereafter always fascinated by the micro-macro distinction in sociology.

See https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-professor-ilya-neustadt-1473958.html

Leicester City did very well at the time and with a group of friends I went to watch them play. Their goalkeeper, Gordon Banks: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Banks played for England until a car accident left him with damaged vision in 1972.

[Danik 2016]

So you will be rooting for England, of course.

[Dreamwoven]

I was in the early 1960s...

[Dreamwoven]

We are heading for another hot month, similar to May, all the rain in the west, England and south of there.

[Danik 2016]

Winter has finally arrived, but you are probably laughing at the temperatures: 10-17ºC and a beautiful mild sun during the day.

[Dreamwoven]

Sweden is currently enjoying a warm spell, similar to that in May, but now three months long. Must be due to global warming. Its like living in Australia. So we have had 4 months of it, blue skies, warm and increasingly hot. Temperatures in the low thirties (celsius). Some days are so hot that I don't risk going out, especially when it is humid and thundery.

And we have had forest fires started by the flashes of lightning. The predominantly dry pine forests are tinder dry, so it doesn't take much to get them burning.

Luckily, Sweden has a fleet of helicopters carrying a water in a largish drum suspended underneath.

What we would really need would be a fleet of "superscoopers", like this: Canadair CL 415: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadair_CL-415.

Italy has one which she lent to Sweden for firefighting.

[Danik 2016]

It seems that at the time we have very similar weather, only there hasn´t been a drop of rain for the last 35 days now. According to the news it is the driest winter for the last 18 years. And yes, there are many fires too. Sometimes there is aerial fighting of the flames, but I don´t think they have those superscoopers.

[Dreamwoven]

Now we have not had rain for 90 days, today we had a brief shower, some 30 minutes long, hardly had enough to wet the ground. The forecast is for prolonged drought.

[Danik 2016]

90 days without rain! I hope there is enough water in the homes.

[Dreamwoven]

Don't worry, the price of water is going up by about SEK 1,000 a year.

[Danik 2016]

Is that little or much?

[Dreamwoven]

Its quite a lot. There are roughly SEK100 to the dollar, and the Euro is the same. The dollar fluctuates in value depending on the US economy, but the Euro is more artificial. If you follow its value it goes up when it receives a boost of savings from the Euro, as there are several currencies which hold the value down, like Greece, Italy and other weak currencies. The EU tries to keep it to the ratio of one per US dollar. But it is a constant drain on EU resources.

[Dreamwoven]

I used to be against the EU, but I have kind of resigned myself to it existence. The latest daft idea the EU has is to have its own volunteer army. This, of course, can be a big burden, justified because the USA under Trump is making big cut-backs. An EU voluntary army duplicates NATO, without providing it with a sound military basis. I suspect the volunteer army will switch over to compulsory once the idea is accepted.

Sweden is not joining the EU army, but staying outside. I am not sure how it manages this, I think it kind of keeps ducking the issue...Anyway it works OK so far...

[Danik 2016]

Is that little or much?

Yes, water and electricity here are rising to. There is the red flag for electricity, when the season is very dry.

[Danik 2016]

I used to be against the EU, but I have kind of resigned myself to it existence. The latest daft idea the EU has is to have its own volunteer army. This, of course, can be a big burden, justified because the USA under Trump is making big cut-backs. An EU voluntary army duplicates NATO, without providing it with a sound military basis. I suspect the volunteer army will switch over to compulsory once the idea is accepted.

Sweden is not joining the EU army, but staying outside. I am not sure how it manages this, I think it kind of keeps ducking the issue...Anyway it works OK so far...

So much the better if you have sons and grandsons.

[Dreamwoven]

I don't know what I wrote there, its nothing to do with the proposed EU army, I was referring to Sweden not joining the Euro. Governments of all parties have avoided this, we keep our own currency, the Swedish crown (SEK).

[Dreamwoven]

Today we are getting heavy showers - extra-heavy and prolonged. The first real rain this summer!

[Danik 2016]

Congrats! This means more water, even if it is a Sunday, where you have to stay at home. The weather forecast announced a hot day,29º C, with rain in the evening.

[Dreamwoven]

One of my enduring interests is Scottish history. I have several books by Nigel Tranter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigel_Tranter but I am considering the possibility of acquiring some more of his books. I like his style of writing, too.

[Dreamwoven]

John Prebble also wrote several books on Scottish history, especially the fire and sword trilogy - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Prebble#Fire_and_Sword_Trilogy, on the depopulation of the Scottish Highlands. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Prebble. I was assistant lecturer at Aberdeen University for 5 year in the 1960s.

[Dreamwoven]

Orion the Hunter rises in the east an hour before dawn. Sadly, we don't have a clear view to the east and anyway at our latitude its still dark, I think around 4 am. See http://earthsky.org/tonight/orion-the-hunter-ghost-of-the-summer-dawn.

[Dreamwoven]

I looked up Tranter in Wikipedia in Wictionary and found this: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tranter, one whop trants, a peddler, a carrier.

[Dreamwoven]

I am going to include a post on William Wallace - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Wallace, I am certain Nigel Tranter will have him as the subject of one of his books.

[Dreamwoven]

Yes, Nigel Trantor did have him as one of his books.

[Dreamwoven]

It made depressing reading.

[Dreamwoven]

It is uncommonly warm in Sweden just now. So much so that they have given it its own name - "Brit sommar": curious name, looked it up in my Swedish-English dictionary - it comes from Britain, where it refers to Swedish -English unseasonably warm summers as "Indian summers", I guess from the 1800s empire days. The high here has been around 20 celsius, though the nights are cold, down to +2 or so celsius.

[Pensive]

My brother is finishing his phd and having a party I am going to visit my brother in north of Sweden in Luleå in a week!
I wonder if you are familiar as well with this part of Sweden